The present invention relates to photography broadly and more specifically relates to a system for signalling persons whose likenesses are captured in a photograph with a URL for a website at which the photograph and related information may be accessed.
Portable electronic devices are in use just about everywhere around the world; PDAs and mobile phones (also known as cell phones) are just a few. One specific feature that is now common on most mobile phones is a digital camera, and/or camcorder to record still photographs or streaming video. The Internet provides an infrastructure that supports applications such as e-mail, file transfer (e.g., digital photographic files) and other resources comprising the World Wide Web (Web) (among other things), which encourages users to create or capture digital photographs and streaming video such that it can be transmitted and accessed via the Internet.
As a result, portable or hand-held electronic devices have developed that are employable to capture digital content such as photographic images and store the files locally and/or remotely. Individuals may upload their photographs, movies, music or the like to one or more websites or servers to enable others to download or otherwise access such content. Alternatively, individuals may send digital files via e-mail, FTP (File Transfer Protocol) or multimedia messaging service (MMS), among other mechanisms, virtually anywhere.
Search engines are utilized to identify relevant content, i.e., files, by utilizing information or data associated with the content. This information is often referred to as metadata, which is defined as data that describes other data. For example, a digital camera can tag a photograph (i.e., a photographic image file) with metadata that includes the date and time the photograph was taken. Users can manually associate metadata with a file. For example, a digital photograph can be decorated with metadata describing people captured by the image, a location at which the image was captured, a description of a photographed event, etc. Captured data such as photographic images, audio, streaming video, amongst other types, can be tagged utilizing information afforded by individuals nearby at the time of capture.
In addition, known technology allows for sending requests for information regarding individuals and/or associated devices within a distance of a digital camera, e.g., the name of camera owner, etc. The ability to identify and tag image data with an identity of a user whose image is captured in a digital photograph, however, does not support enabling the person captured in a photographic image to gain access to the photograph and/or related information. That is, technologies are heretobefore not available that can notify a person whose likeness is captured in a photographic image to enable the person to readily provide or deny permission (authorization) to use the photograph, or the image-captured likeness.